Fun & Learning in the Garden with Incredible, Edible Herbs!

The incredible, edible herb? Herbs are a wannabe-gardener's best buddy. Even if you don't have a huge space outdoors for planting, or any space at all, you can have an herb garden! You can plant herbs in containers, you can grow some in water, you can house them indoors given proper lighting and outdoors given the proper temperature. You can savor the flavors in the dead of winter from your kitchen window. You can dry them, freeze them, cook and can your own preserves or make your own tea. The options are as endless as varieties!

Our current outdoor herb collection
with a special cameo from my
chicken feet...

For children (and adults like me), the beginnings of a garden have all the hope and potential in the world. And then there is the waiting. The long, hot, sweaty, incessant waiting. For this reason, I encourage those who are gardening with children to mix it up a bit. Start off with some seeds you sow on your own and some starter plants as well. Choose a few options that will provide you with a quick and early harvest. Radishes a great! Staggering your planting throughout the gardening season can also be beneficial. Plant and harvest those radishes early on and then grow some more (if you really love radishes) or try some carrots that will be ready in the fall. Here in Virginia, many plants do well late into the autumn season. But waiting for that first tasty harvest can be disheartening. Summer heat and drought make the work feel treacherous and everyone needs a little reward along the way. Herbs are your reward!

Our window box is home to some
pineapple sage and lemon verbena,
both delicious additions to freshly
squeezed lemonade, iced tea or water

We do start some from seed (certain ones do better for us than others) and we also buy some starter plants. You can often find small herb plants even in the produce section of your local grocery chain year round. In the spring and summer months, garden centers are brimming with interesting options. Choose some favorites you know you will use like mint, parsley, oregano, basil and thyme. Choose some unique ones you haven't tried like pineapple sage or lemon thyme, eucalyptus or chamomile. Dill, chives and mint varieties all grow like weeds! Dill will also attract certain pollinators to your garden (but beware of those that might be harmful to other nearby plants, like hornworms). Mint comes in so many varieties besides classic peppermint, but because they grow so voraciously, they don't do well in the same container without intermingling to the point of being unrecognizable in scent and flavor (who knew?). When your growing season is close to the end and before the first frost, many herbs can be easily dried, frozen and stored for use throughout the winter. How lovely it would be to taste the spring and summer months all year long? (And you'll save a bundle on the cost of fresh or dried herbs in the store off season!)
Herbs are a great way to share the garden-to-table experience in the comfort of your own home (and yard). When it comes to gardening, we dig in. I encourage playing with your food here! Nothing goes to waste when you play with the food you have grown yourself. We had a great time in our yard playing and exploring with Incredible, Edible Herbs--but don't worry, we used some for cooking and eating, too!

Lemon thyme and lemon verbena are ready for grinding in the mortar and pestle. How interesting it is to smell lemons with no lemons in sight! Show your growing gardeners how to gently rub leaves of herbs between their fingers, even while still attached to the plant and smell the incredible scents of different herbs. Can they smell the difference between parsley and cilantro? How about lavender and rosemary? Basil and mint?

• Just add scissors! And maybe a mortar and pestle... Cutting herbs, grinding herbs, smelling and handling herbs are great ways to combine fine motor skills and sensory play as your little gardener's help harvest and explore. It's also an opportunity to talk about how and when to harvest herbs and plants in the garden. Let's not forget the extreme eagerness of tiny green thumbs to pluck tiny green tomatoes!

Bring your herb scented nature looms indoors to dry and display!

• Herb Scented Nature Looms: This is such a sweet and simple way to collect and display your nature findings, whether it's from a patch of wildflowers, collected leaves and dandelions from the park or the sweet and savory scents from your herb garden. We used recycled cardboard and rubber bands to create our looms (this is a great fine motor activity in and of itself) and arranged some of what we cut and collected in the garden.

• Herb Scented Sensory Play: Water play is a favorite activity among both my boys and this water table (or bowl or bin) idea is taste safe for the very young. Choose some herbs that smell particularly lovely together like mint or rosemary and lavender... You can add in some spoons for stirring, cups and containers for filling and pouring or just some eager hands!

Lavender & Rosemary Waterplay

Peppermint & Spearmint Waterplay

• Invitation to Draw a Still Life of an Herb: Herbs are so very lovely to look at. They almost beckon a budding artist to capture that beauty on paper or canvas. The garden in a great place to introduce the concept of still life drawing to young artists. Perfection or correct representation is certainly not the goal here, but rather child-led process art and the experience of drawing or painting or otherwise capturing what comes to mind when they view the targeted objects. A variety of mediums for coloring and paper alongside our glass jar of cut herbs were all that was needed to set up this simple still life. Alternatively, you can bring a sketch book with you to the garden and have a pouch of colored pencils on the ready!

Our basket is stocked with a variety of preserved herb seed packets and a magnifying glass. These are a portion of my previous years' remainders and seed envelopes sealed in ziplock bags and are great for observation of seeds and what they look like fully grown. You can also separate your leftover seeds and their corresponding packets to create a fun matching game! With fresh cut herbs on display, the aroma of our lemon scented mortar & pestle activity plus a selection of art mediums and paper on the ready for both my budding artists, inspiration is at their fingertips!

• Meanwhile, in the kitchen... I have a confession: I not-so-secretly love how S throws a fit when it's time to come inside from the garden. That said, I don't think our neighbors love it as much and after a while, the mud-covered child who is screaming and yelling that he's still not finished even starts to get under my skin and look a little less cute and adorable. (How can a tear stained face full of dirt and mud not be a little cute and adorable?) You need a really great lure and for S, the kitchen is the place to be. So I had a batch of our favorite pizza dough already whipped up in the fridge for making Fresh Herb Bread Sticks to go with our dinner. Use your favorite pizza dough recipe or buy ready-made if you prefer. Gather a selection of cut herbs like basil, oregano, parsley, rosemary and thyme and get all hands on deck for cutting (kitchen scissors with support, a child-friendly crinkle cutting knife or even a plastic knife work well) and knead those delicious herbs right into your dough before shaping and rolling some wiggly worm bread sticks to bake up for a perfect side to soup and salad night! If you like, coat with egg wash and sprinkle with some minced garlic, kosher salt and more herbs! If you have an adventurous eater who also loves cooking, you might invite your kitchen assistants to cut up some fresh herbs mix into a batch of scrambled eggs. Is this breakfast? Dinner? Who cares! Yum!

Want to do more? We loved this invitation to create with fresh cut herbs and homemade playdough this past Thanksgiving. It was an activity that S returned to again and again (and we still had enough left over to baste our bird)! All you need is a selection of your favorite herbs, playdough (homemade is great or store bought is fine, too), some scissors and maybe a rolling pin or two...

Herbs can be a full sensory experience. From seed to sprout to harvest to table and everywhere in between, growing your own can make just about anyone feel like they have a green thumb--even me! We'll see you next time and until then...

Happy Playing!